Precarious in Seattle: the ride-hailing company’s future in the city is uncertain.
Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

Uber is threatening to leave Seattle if it cannot stop a potential union election, and some Uber drivers could not be happier.

“Uber came and killed my business,” said Tewodros Ashene, an Ethiopian immigrant who is proud to display the 7,588 five-star trips he has earned on the Uber platform. Before the ride-hail company came to town, Ashene owned a limousine company and made a good living. Now, he is working 16 hours a day to make the same amount of money he used to make in eight.

Uber’s future in the Pacific northwest city has been thrown into question by a 2015 law passed by the Seattle city council that allows app-based drivers to bargain collectively. The first-of-its-kind law is an existential threat to a key aspect of Uber’s business model: classifying its army of drivers as independent contractors and thereby avoiding laws that allows workers to unionize.

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Uber has fought hard to have the bill overthrown, and on Tuesday it received a reprieve when a judge temporarily blocked the law to allow the latest legal challenge to proceed.But if Uber doesn’t end up getting its way in court, the $70bn company has hinted that it might do in Seattle what it did in Austin, Texas: pack up its bags and go home. Withdrawing from a second major US city would only add to the embattled company’s current woes, which include a video of the CEO berating an Uber driver, allegations of widespread sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and a major legal battle with Google.

“We’re unsure of the future of Uber in Seattle,” Uber Pacific northwest general manager Brooke Steger said at an event last month. “We don’t know if we will be able to continue to operate here.”

In a statement to the Guardian, Steger promised to “bargain in good faith”but warned: “If we are forced to adhere to the old taxi way of doing business, then all options are on the table.”

‘If they leave, it’ll be better’

While the threat of Uber’s departure may seem like a nightmare to the city’s passengers, among the scores of drivers waiting for a fare at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport on a recent afternoon, it was almost universally welcomed. Drivers left their cars and mingled amid the Priuses in small groups. Conversations revolved around the various iniquities and indignities of driving for Uber.

“If they leave, it’ll be better,” said Navneet Singh, who was a taxi driver for 15 years before he began driving for Uber two years ago. Singh was furious about a recent Uber Pool trip from the airport to Olympia, Washington, (more than 50 miles) for which he’d been paid just $15.88.

Navneet Singh, a pro-union Uber driver in Seattle, at the airport parking lot. Photograph: Julia Carrie Wong for the Guardian

Francis, another Uber driver who asked not to be identified by his last name out of fear of retaliation, likened the situation with Uber and the union to that of a family argument. If a child asks her mother for something she needs, and the mother ignores her, he explained, the mother can’t complain when the child goes to her father for help.

“Let Uber know we are not happy to take the union, but Uber forced us to,” Francis said. “If they treated us better, no one would want the union.”

Union organizing 2.0

A traditional union campaign plays out on the shop floor, with pro-union and anti-union factions attempting to woo their co-workers in break-rooms and cafeterias. But with an app-based workforce comes an app-based union campaign, and both sides of the fight are attempting to leverage technology to make their case.

Uber uses its app to communicate its anti-union message to drivers daily. When drivers login to work, they are prompted to listen to an Uber-produced podcast featuring Steger in discussion with anti-union drivers. (The drivers who participate in the podcasts are compensated “for their time off the road”, confirmed an Uber spokesperson.) Drivers regularly receive text messages, emails, and phone calls from the company, as well as invitations to in-person meetings about unionization.

Dawn Gearhart, an organizer for the union who is frequently mentioned by name in Uber’s anti-union messaging, claims that Uber is also using subtler technological tactics to discourage driver interest in the union. The company has a pattern of turning on surge pricing during the hours that the union is holding meetings for drivers, she alleged, even if it’s early afternoon and demand is low. Once, she said, they even sent a message to driver’s offering free fried chicken from Ezell’s (a famous Seattle institution known as Oprah’s favorite) right before a union meeting.

Uber denied that its incentives for drivers were timed to coincide with union activities.

Meanwhile, the union has adjusted to an app-based workforce as well.

“We’re using platforms to communicate instead of bulletin boards and leaflets,” Gearhart said.

At a union meeting for drivers on Saturday, one driver encouraged the other 70 attendees to join his Telegraph encrypted-messaging group so they could easily communicate. “If one single driver has an issue, you can put your issue in there and get the support of each other,” he explained.

Uber is using its app to communicate its anti-union message with drivers. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee / Reuters/Reuters

WhatsApp is also a popular communication tool for drivers (Singh boasted that he had two WhatsApp group chats with 70 and 100 drivers to communicate about the union.)

The union has even been taking advantage of Uber’s own platform. “Instead of going to a shop and asking who works where, you can open the app and see where there’s a congregation,” she said. “It’s a map that leads you to where people are.”

‘Talk to us and solve the problem’

As the ordinance works its way through the courts,all sides will likely continue pushing their message, leaving some drivers confused about whom to trust.

Alkarim Elmi, who belonged to a taxi driver union in Los Angeles before moving to Seattle and working for Uber, said he didn’t know who to believe. He had a bad experience with the union in LA, but also doesn’t trust Uber.

“Uber should have direct communication with the drivers, not just through the app,” he said. “Talk to us and solve the problem.”

The attitudes of Uber drivers at the airport parking lot, where the workforce was predominantly full-time immigrant workers who previously drove taxis professionally, are likely different from the many part-time workers who drive for ride-hail companies for extra income.

“All the white people working part-time are against the union,” said Singh. “They’re just doing it for fun.”

But for full time drivers, who have invested in the company by buying cars, the question of Uber’s future in the city and whether they will have a chance to negotiate a better deal is urgent.

“If Uber leaves,” said Peter Kuel, a South Sudanese driver, “we’ll do our own app and one of us will be CEO.”